The Depth Charge

ClipperBlog Live’s Best Moment

Luke Laubhan’s debut! Andrew and Luke ponder whether this marks the end of the Clippers’ horrific shooting slump and who would they rather have: John Wall or Eric Bledsoe?

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It’s Not Just About the Starters
The Clippers made a somewhat surprising change today: moving Jamal Crawford into the starting lineup in place of Willie Green. But maybe just as important of a move is placing Green into Crawford’s role, because Green’s presence shook up the way the second unit played.

With Crawford out, the second unit essentially played a motion offense. We haven’t seen that much this season, and part of that might have to do with Crawford’s iso-heavy game moving into the starting lineup. And even with its leading scorer leaving the reserves, the second unit managed to play pretty well.

After the game, Jared Dudley said running the motion offense in Crawford’s absence wasn’t much of a coincidence. We’ll probably see a lot more pick-and-roll in the future, more off-ball movement. Doc Rivers said one of the reasons he moved Crawford to the first unit was because Collison, a score-first guard, might work better with Green. Maybe this was exactly what he had in mind.- Fred Katz

Everything In Its Right Place
Jamal Crawford in the starting lineup, Willie Green relegated to bench status. The two-headed monster of Hollins/Mullens on the floor for just seven minutes, all of which were in the throwaway fourth quarter. Doc Rivers does not shy away from tinkering with his rotation. For a team with such heady aspirations and endless lineup possibilities, it makes sense. For one night in this injury-laden stretch, Rivers found the perfect balance, striking the pendulum back to the Clippers’ side.

A concerted effort to get Jared Dudley going in the first quarter—on his favourite side of the court, no less— was reminiscent of Redick’s first quarter prowess. Not a moment of quarters one through three were spent without either DJ or Griffin on the floor, holding the regular bench ineptitude at bay and allowing L.A. to build a steady lead throughout the first half. Chris Paul was stellar; astronomical, even. More accurately, he was vintage.

Tonight’s game was a welcome deviation from the inconsistent play and uncertainty that plagued this road trip; an essential performance to get the Clippers back on track as they head home.- Seerat Sohi

Effortless Offense
Tonight, the 113 points on 56.5 percent shooting came directly after a nine-game stretch in which the team ranked in the league’s bottom third in terms of offensive efficiency.

Against the Wizards, Paul came out aggressive, taking and making two 3-pointers in the game’s opening minutes and staying active throughout. The pace was also much quicker than we’ve seen in recent games, the ball zipping around from to player to player. And while Rivers’ decision to insert Crawford’s speed and energy into the starting lineup helped Dudley regain his swagger, against better teams – Washington came in depleted by injury – the sixth-man extraordinaire’s second unit absence could really hurt.- Aaron Fischman

Same Stuff, Different Day for DJ
On a night when the outcome was not often in doubt, the only real push made by the Wizards came at DeAndre Jordan’s expense. Los Angeles held a 22-point lead with 3:30 left in the third quarter – the game felt over – when Washington elected to start fouling DeAndre off the ball. The result: three consecutive L.A. possessions ended with DJ going 1-2 from the foul line, the Clippers’ offense went off the rails, and the lead dropped to 12 points. Doc subbed out his floundering big man with 1:54 left. It was a bad 90 seconds.

Then, with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter and order seemingly restored, Doc reinserted DeAndre only to watch the Wizards intentionally foul him two straight times. Like that, DJ was back on the bench for the rest of the night. Consider it a lesson-learned, or perhaps a failed experiment, for the coach entrusted to solve the riddle of deploying DeAndre Jordan. It’s December, it’s the Wizards, and it was a 16-point win; the stakes here were low. In a few months, though, Los Angeles will need a better solution to this perpetual problem. Good luck, Doc.- Luke Laubhan

Not what you want, but what you need
While Clippers coach Doc Rivers disagreed with the notion that the game was a must-win at shootaround, he admitted that going 3-4 against mainly sub-.500 Eastern Conference teams would be a major disappointment at any point in the season.

“I think they’re a little frustrated on this trip,” Rivers told reporters. “They think it should have gone better. It still can go well. If you win this game, 4-3 on a seven-game trip — that’s good. It’s not what we wanted. We want to win all seven of them. But you just keep plugging along.”

With the win, the Clippers finished the trip above .500 at 4-3 and are now 16-9. That isn’t necessarily where they expected to be at this point in the season, but at the very least Saturday’s win showed that if they need to win a tough road game to ease their mental psyche, they can.- Jovan Buha, at ESPNLA

Los Angeles is a miraculous .500 (4-4) in the eight games Redick has been out. Not sure a lot more can be expected than for the team to tread water until at least some of the injured players return.- Andrew Han

I agree with Andrew that Deandre Jordan provides a lot of
good qualities that you seek from a center. DJ is a freakishly durable shot
blocker who alters a lot of drives with his presence. You have to live with the
free throw shooting. History has shown you could win with a poor free throw
shooting center ala Ben Wallace, Shaq, Russell, etc. The real concern is wither Blake Griffin can be a second option on a championship team. That is where I have my doubts. The dude disappears in the fourth quarter and doesn’t have confidence in his shot and he passes up crunch time open jumpers. If the Clippers are smart they look proactively at what’s happening in Minnesota with Kevin Love. If there is a slight chance that they can pry Love away because Minnesota fears that they can’t lock him up long term than they have to pounce. Love is superior fit alongside CP3 and DJ. He is a talent upgrade whose perimeter shooting, rebounding, and outlet passing will thrive with this team.

http://2epicbits.com/ theSUBVERSIVE

But as other of his decisions, like letting DJ try to handle guys, trying to save Jamison for the 2nd half of the season, he tried to not start Jamal, but as the Jamison situation, injuries and bad basketball made him reluctantly give up something that he wanted to preserve.

note:

1) team wasn’t doing right, but mainly the bench and even more so, the bench’s D.

– Doc put Jamison in the rotation and pull out Mullens and voilà, bench starts to play better, defense got a lot better and the bench doesn’t lose lead like before. Who would had thought that? Jamison.

2) team is struggling and shooting horribly

– Doc move Crawford to the starting line up to restore the spacing that was missing. Crawford won’t run all over the place and defensively he is somewhat a downgrade from Redick but nonetheless, he spaces the floor and demand a guy glued to him. It’s not simply spacing, having Crawford force teams to think twice before DT Blake, which helps the whole offense. For the bench, their identity changed with Crawford’s absence, which is good when shots are actually falling.

Hey, I’m not saying that Clippers are going to shoot well like they did in this game, but having the spacing back and a guy that makes opponents think before DT Blake are clearly important for the offensive flow.

Hopefully guys starts to get healthy soon. That idea of some trade with the Wizards is very interesting, but I also think they loaded with bigs because Nene has been having problems to stay healthy and they knew it.

Charles G

Considering BKN doesn’t even use him anymore, do the Clippers have anyone to give for Reggie Evans?

Polotip

When is Barnes going to be back?

Andrew Han

I believe earliest return is just about a week now. He’s already been fitted for goggles.